What you didn’t read about the Iowa caucuses

What you didn’t read about the Iowa caucuses

The primary elections in Iowa of the so-called Republican and Democratic parties, held on February 1st, have been widely covered in the US media as well as in other countries, including Cuba.

Most of the coverage of this event tries to highlight something that is a big lie: the so-called “democratic process” by which Americans of both political parties choose the presidential candidate. Then by what they call “free elections” a new president is elected. When this is done, the electoral farce is over.

Among the “features” that some attribute to the Iowa primaries is that the winner of each of the parties almost certainly becomes its presidential candidate. Let’s see how this is done.

As far as the Democratic Party is concerned, the assertion could be taken as valid. During the 1996 primaries (Clinton), 2000 (Gore), 2004 (Kerry), 2008 (Hillary, by the preferential votes from the party leadership, which then switched to Obama), and 2012 (Obama), were all winners in Iowa and became presidential candidates.

As regards the Republican Party we cannot take it as an acceptable indicator because of the results which are: 1996 (Dole), 2000 (Bush), 2004 (Bush), 2008 (Huckabee, McCain was fourth) 2012 (Santorum, Romney came in second). In recent years the winner in Iowa has not exactly been the presidential candidate for the Republicans.

As US news agencies have published (and others have repeated ) victory in the Democratic field narrowly went to Hillary with 50.2 percent of the votes, while Sanders scored 49.8.

On the Republican side, the results are described as surprising (this is also repeated by others). Ted Cruz won 28 percent of the vote, Donald Trump 24, Marco Rubio 23 and further behind, but still in the race, Ben Carson with 9.3 percent followed by Rand Paul and Bush. According to what has happened in recent years, on the Republican side nothing is certain for anyone.

Consider other factors that are generally concealed. Each of the so-called “parties” in Iowa has approximately 600,000 people registered as party members. Do not forget this figure. That amounts to about 1, 200,000 people, and in 2010, according to the Census Bureau of the United States, the voting age population in Iowa was 2, 318,000.

Everyone knows that in any election in the United States abstention becomes apparent as a form of protest by those who are certain they will not live better under one president or another; so then why bother to vote? Regularly, abstention nationwide is about 50 percent of the population, as reflected in Iowa between total population and registered party members.

It must be added that, on the day of the primaries, February 1st, Iowa and other neighboring states were experiencing one of the most violent snowstorms of the season which by its nature was called “Snowzilla”. This was another good reason to stay home and not go to vote.

Let us now see how out of the 600,000 registered voters in each of the political parties how many really bothered and overcame all difficulties to go to vote.

These figures, plus other votes that were cast, total 155,535, which represent 25.9 percent of registered Republicans. ONLY ABOUT A QUARTER OF THEM VOTED.

Perhaps this will give you a clear idea of how what these gentlemen call “representative democracy” really works. This is actually an outdated and rigged system to ensure the power of the ruling class.

Of the nearly 600,000 people registered as Democrats, 1,327 showed up to cast their votes (Martinoticias.com, February 1, 2016) 0.22 percent, a real abstentionist scandal. However, they distributed among themselves the 43 delegates to the Convention as if everything had happened normally. “Free elections” and “representative democracy” keep marching on.

If you’ve read a review like this on the elections in the United States, in any media, please send it to me to improve my knowledge.

I hope now you understand better the circumstances that led Hillary and Ted Cruz to be declared winners in Iowa. This story is repeated in every primary.

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